The posting of the car for sale has sparked numerous internet reminiscences of Gates’ wild ways during the heady days in which Microsoft established its dominance in corporate computing and the former CEO’s long rivalry with Apple founder Steve Jobs began.

As Time magazine wrote in a 1997 profile of Gates – who was then about to become embroiled in the antitrust probe that cemented his reputation as tech’s bad boy – the billionaire has a passion for fast cars that started when the money first began to roll in for Microsoft and continued well into the 1990s, when he offloaded the turquoise 911.

“When Microsoft was based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in its early years, [Gates] bought a Porsche 911 and used to race it in the desert; Paul Allen had to bail him out of jail after one midnight escapade. He got three speeding tickets – two from the same cop who was trailing him – just on the drive from Albuquerque the weekend he moved Microsoft to Seattle," Time reporter Walter Isaacson wrote.

“Later he bought a Porsche 930 Turbo he called the “rocket," then a Mercedes, a Jaguar XJ6, a $US60,000 Carrera Cabriolet 964, a $US380,000 Porsche 959 that ended up impounded in a customs shed because it couldn’t meet import emission standards, and a Ferrari 348 that became known as the “dune buggy" after he spun it into the sand."

The Porsche 959 in particular has gone down in automotive lore – dubbed the ‘Gates 959’ – after it was impounded for 13 years because it did not meet US environmental regulations.

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Gates, Allen and comedian Jerry Seinfeld all attempted to import the 959, which was built by Porsche in the mid-1980s. But the model did not meet US transport and environment laws, leading the Customs Service to impound Gates’ vehicle in Seattle from 1987 to the late 1990s.

The impounding eventually led the US government – following lobbying from Gates and Allen – to pass the so-called ‘Show and Display’ law that exempts some privately imported automobiles from motor vehicle safety standards on the grounds of historical or technological significance.

Gates’ 1979 911 Turbo is expected to fetch between €39,000 and €50,000 when it goes under the hammer on June 6.